Duchess of Sussex makes important statement with 'baby reveal' dress

Instead, the mother of wee Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor made her first appearance two days after the arrival of her son (and also after husband Harry's adorably wonder-struck press conference as a new dad).

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their newborn son.Credit:Pool

Meghan, who surely would rather be wearing something elasticised, glowed in a chic tuxedo dress by British fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner.

Wales Bonner is a designer who has been tipped as Britain's next big thing, and is perhaps one of the most interesting fashion designers working right now.

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Her frock also makes for a powerful statement.

It was an astute choice for the duchess, who often wears labels with messaging and manufacturing practices that align with her values (such as Australian denim label Outland Denim, which supports Cambodian women who have been victims of trafficking).

For one thing, just like Meghan and now the newest addition to that most traditional of families, Wales Bonner is bi-racial: her father is Jamaican and her mother is English.

The designer has previously won the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers and last week she picked up the British Fashion Council/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund's top prize.

Starting in menswear, Wales Bonner branched into womens last year, and often explores themes of sexuality, self-expression and identity in her beautifully crafted and embellished, often gender-fluid clothes.

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She has said previously that growing up in South London, with its clash of sportswear, traditional clothing and streetwear, first piqued her interest in fashion. Her work has referenced American poet Ishmael Reed and 20th century Harlem.

"I’m big into creating history and research, and fashion is one outcome," the designer once told the Guardian. "What I do in fashion could be considered in a wider context; it could be opened up to expose my thought processes."

Earlier this year, Wales Bonner held an exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery titled A Time for New Dreams, which took its name from Nigerian writer Ben Okri’s 2011 collection of essays, and used installation, readings and performance art to explore black histories.

She was also invited by Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri to collaborate on the French luxury house's "bar jacket", part of its famous New Look silhouette, for the maison's cruise collection shown in Marrakech this month.

Wales Bonner added traditional Caribbean embroidery to the cuffs of the jacket to, as she put it to the Guardian's fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley, “bring an element of myself into this emblem of European luxury”.

This retaining of identity in new worlds is, you could argue, also in keeping with Meghan's approach to her new role, both as a duchess and, now, as a mother raising a son.